Handicapped Soap Down Boats Proudly

Captain Bob looks through his soap-speckled sunglasses at Jeff Loveday, a 22-year-old whose hands are still wet and red from scrubbing the deck of a yacht.

``Jeff, how do I tell you to clean a boat?`` Captain Bob, who has worked on boats for more than 30 years, asks Loveday.

``Just like we do it,`` Loveday replies, beaming with pride and glancing at the 45-foot yacht he and a crew of three made shine during an intensive maintenance session at the boat`s dock at the Palm Beach Yacht Club.

``Right, but remember what I told you? Cleaning a boat is just like washing a . . .`` Captain Bob waits for the answer, but it`s only a second before Loveday responds:

``Dish! Just like washing a dish,`` Loveday says, looking very pleased with himself for having come up with the answer. ``You be careful and you make it shine.``

Captain Bob pats Loveday on the back and looks just as pleased at the answer as Loveday.

``We`ll get you some really good boats to clean soon. Boats that you deserve.``

Captain Bob, known as Bob Fuhrman to landlubbers, has been teaching boat repair and maintenance to mentally handicapped adults from the Palm Beach Habilitation Center in Lake Worth since last February.

In that short year, he has seen the 2 1/2-year-old Boatworks program become one of the center`s busiest and most successful projects.

The program, he said, is now in great need of boat owners to pay for the services of the trainees to maintain their boats.

``The nicer the boat the better. I want the trainees to see how good their hard work looks on fine boats. They do a great job, and I`m there to make sure everything gets done just right,`` Captain Bob said. ``Other than really needing good boats, we`re really happy with how the program is going.``

Boat owners from around the county have donated about 80 boats to be repaired, maintained and resold by the Boatworks staff. The money brought in by the sale of boats is used for equipment and for the salaries of the staff and the mentally retarded trainees.

Boat Captain Phil Gansz, director of Boatworks, said the boats help keep the program alive in more than one way.

``We need as many boats as we can get, not just for the money to keep things going, but for the trainees, too. They have to have boats to work on,`` Gansz said. ``It`s just amazing the improvement the trainees go through when they`ve learned how to work on boats. We`re grateful for anything we get.``

The purpose of Boatworks is to train mentally handicapped adults to enable them to join the working world. Already, some 12 trainees have found jobs at marinas or with Boatworks after completing the program.

``With these kinds of results, being so busy and hectic here makes it all worth it,`` saidGansz, who combined his training in social work and boating to start the program. ``We want these guys to stay out of institutions as much as they want to stay away from them.``

Owners of the boats that are maintained by the Habilitation trainees are happy with the results.

``I`m glad I`m able to help them. They do a really professional job,`` said Enrique Tomeu, president of Siboney Contracting Co. in West Palm Beach. ``I wouldn`t keep them working for me if they didn`t.``